Tag: Red Shirt

It’s a month since the UK’s “most difficult to call election in decades” surprised most people by not ending in some kind of coalition. It turned out that the British weren’t condemned to years of political alliance and 2010 to 2015 was some kind of freak anomaly – much like you might find in say, the Badlands of the Alpha Quadrant. Yes, apparently there ere many clues laid down by the coalition of blue, red and gold that formed aboard the USS Voyager in 1993. Of course back then it was a seven year fixed term…

RED SHIRTS USED TO HAVE A BIT OF A REPUTATION. WELL, YEAH, IT STILL HANGS AROUND. YOU MIGHT FIND THEM EMERGING FROM DRY CLEANERS AND HANGING ON STREET CORNERS ALONGSIDE KNOCK KNOCK AND CHEESE JOKES*. BUT IN THE ERA OF THE NEXT GENERATION THEY MADE A STAB FOR POWER. And very successful it was to. By the glorious 24th century those infamous Star Fleet red shirts signified command… And possibly the greatest string of election victories in recent times. Gold had fallen from its glorious hey-day a few generations before, reduced to filling in various policies on operations and social engineering. Blue, or a variation of it, remained aloof and scientific, not doubt most likely to isolate themselves from the common man…

But it wasn’t the shirts that needed mingling in the Delta Quadrant come the early ’90s. There were simply more cabinet spaces to be filled.

It started by surprise, a simple mission to dodge the boom and bust of those Badlands. Sometimes these things come out of nowhere – riddled as the Badlands are with plasma storms and gravitational anomalies that could make the safest political ground throw up the most unpredictable of horrible surprises. In the 24th century, the USS Voyager encountered the ultimate nanny state there. The Caretaker, a seemingly benevolent and kind force who over left his over-legislated people with the biggest crisis of their short lives. Near the end of hiss term, he may as well have just left a note saying that there wasn’t any money (left).